by Sam Sisavath
It grabbed the rifle by the barrel and yanked it out of her hands. The move was so effortless that for a moment it took her breath away. She staggered back, unsure if she even had control of her legs anymore. She reached down to her hip for her sidearm and drew the Glock as the creature watched her, head cocked to one side, eyes glowing magnificently in the semidarkness of the narrow hallway.
She aimed for the head—
“Remember: shoot them in the head,” Will had said.
—and fired.
It flicked its head to one side, and the bullet sailed harmlessly past it and hit the master bedroom doorframe at the other end of the second floor.
“Remember…”
She fired again.
It moved its head left, and again the bullet disappeared up the hallway, but this time it vanished into the darkened bedroom. She prayed she didn’t accidentally hit Danny or one of the girls.
“…shoot them in the head.”
She squeezed the trigger again and again and again—
The creature continued coming toward her, its head snapping left, then right, as if it were sashaying, a dancer with absolute control over every inch of its body, every slight twitch. Its head bobbed and weaved like a boxer.
And it kept coming…
It was three feet away when she fired her final shot and watched the bullet graze its cheek, taking away flesh and cutting into bone underneath. There was a thin trickle of black blood before the wound seemed to seal itself up.
It stood so close to her now that she could feel its breath—acidic and strangely warm—against her face. It watched her struggling to reload the Glock, her fingers trembling from the adrenaline and terror and the sight of this undead thing standing so close to her that it could reach out at any moment and lick her face.
She managed to put the magazine in and worked the slide, and as she lifted the weapon there was a blur of black skin and the gun flew from her hand. Her arm stung from the blow and she backpedaled again in shock.
It followed and grabbed her by the shoulders, smashing her into the wall. The entire house shook. Or maybe that was just her imagination. The world that existed from her toes to her head definitely trembled because she couldn’t focus on any one thing anymore as pain exploded through every fiber of her being.
She slid to the floor, thankful that the wall was there to prevent her from collapsing like the sad sack of useless meat she felt like at the moment. Her ears might have been bleeding, and she couldn’t feel the shape of the earbud in her ear anymore. When had she lost that? And where was the radio? It was gone, too. When had that happened? Maybe it was for the best, since she couldn’t hear much of anything anyway, even the gunfire from below her.
Will.
And Danny from the main bedroom. Was he shooting? Was that the pop-pop-pop of automatic gunfire? Or something else? Maybe all the noises were being conjured up by her mind, which at the moment might have been on fire.
Was that possible? Could her mind actually be burning?
And pain. There was so much pain…
She couldn’t feel her left arm, which had jammed into the wall first. Was it broken? She couldn’t move it no matter how hard she tried. So maybe.
And what the hell was that ringing in her ears?
It was crouching in front of her, long bony legs bending at awkward angles. Its smooth skin, pulled taut over a sharp skeletal frame, reminding her of all those anorexic supermodels in lingerie catalogs. Eat something, she wanted to say to it, then maybe laugh in its face. Of course, when she opened her mouth to do just that, only a slight gasp came out.
Had she even opened her mouth? Could her mouth even move?
It touched her cheek with one long, slender finger. There was no fingernail, only a fleshy nub. The contact was surprisingly gentle, almost like a lover’s caress. She didn’t feel very loved, though, but trying to pull away was not working. She only managed to turn her head slightly, but even that took a lot of effort, and the creature simply grabbed her chin with its other hand and forced her to stare back at it again.
“I knew someone,” it said, hissing out the words.
Unfathomably bright eyes pierced through her as if they could touch her soul, but she didn’t see what she expected to see. There was no glaring evil on the other side, just something that, once upon a time, was human, but wasn’t anymore.
“She looked like you,” it said.
It turned her head carefully left, then right again, as if to get a good look at every inch of her face, to memorize every line, every bruise and healing scar. The broken nose from this morning and the cuts from the helicopter crash that still hadn’t fully healed yet, and might never.
“Not as pretty, but close,” it said.
The crashing of gunshots. Danny and Will. Fighting for their lives against how many more of these monsters inside the house? Three? One was definitely inside the room with Danny, so were the other two downstairs with Will? How was Will going to fight off two when she and Danny could barely survive one each?
We’re dead. We’re all dead.
If we’re lucky…
The creature turned its head, looking back toward the bedroom, just as a small figure emerged out of the blackness.
Claire.
The thirteen-year-old was holding the shotgun Will had given her. It still looked ridiculously massive against her slight frame. Claire was running toward them when she slid to a stop in front of the pile of debris—and Lance, still buried under them—as the ghoul feasted its eyes on her.
“Shoot it!” Gaby shouted. “Shoot it in the head!”
The creature was standing up when Claire fired, the shotgun blast so loud in the narrow passageway that Gaby physically flinched at the explosion. The ghoul turned its body slightly right as most of the buckshot glanced off its shoulder, the rounds punching through soft flesh and embedding into the wall.
Then it moved toward the girl.
No, not Claire! Stay away from her!
Gaby’s eyes darted down to the floor.
The Glock. Where the hell was the Glock?
There!
Less than three feet away. She lunged for it, throwing her entire body forward with everything she had, unsure if it would even work until her chest slammed into the floor. That was a stupid move. More blinding flashes of pain, but she gritted her teeth through them and she reached for the 9mm handgun, wrapped her numbed fingers around it—
She struggled to sit back up.
The creature was almost on top of Claire, who had backed up and fired again. A large chunk of the ghoul’s thigh disintegrated, but the creature kept advancing, undeterred. It could have reached Claire faster, she realized. She had seen it move with blinding speed when it wanted to. But it wasn’t at the moment. Why not?
Because this is a game. It’s playing with her.
It’s all just a game to them…
“Hey!” Gaby shouted.
It turned and looked back at her, and its mouth curved into a grin.
“Run!” Gaby shouted, not at the creature, but at Claire. “Go to Will! Go now!”
Claire climbed over the debris and Lance and darted down the stairs.
The ghoul didn’t seem interested in pursuing Claire anymore. It only had eyes for her again. “Still want to play?” it hissed.
“No,” she said, and shot it in the right kneecap.
The gun was steady in her hand. She didn’t know how that was possible, but it barely moved as she fired.
The creature’s leg buckled, and as it went down, she shot it again, this time in the left kneecap, forcing it to involuntarily kneel in front of her.
Then she saw it in its eyes.
Understanding.
It knew what she was doing, and it wasn’t smiling anymore.
It started to get up when she shot it again, but this time her hand moved slightly for whatever reason, and she hit it in the cheek. The impact snapped its head upward like a spring. Before it could fully recove
r, she shot it in the center of the face. Its nose—or what was left of it—exploded into tiny chunks, and something punched its way out of the back of its skull, sticky wet goop splattering across the walls.
The creature flopped sideways and lay still.
It wasn’t as dramatic as she thought it would be. One second it was on its knees, as if in worship, and the next it was lying in a pool of its own oozing black blood, blue eyes still incandescent in the semidarkness. It might have even been looking back at her. Or maybe through her. What mattered was that it didn’t move again.
She struggled up to her feet. It was difficult. Her left arm wouldn’t respond no matter how hard she tried. She stumbled over the twisted carcass—it looked more emaciated in death for some reason, and less powerful—and up the hallway.
She stopped for a moment at the sight of Lance, buried in debris, bright red blood pooling under him with the halo of moonlight falling through the opening in the roof. Gaby looked toward the stairs. She couldn’t hear anything from down there. Not a single sound. And she couldn’t see anything, either. The other end of the staircase was completely swallowed in darkness.
Crying, coming from the master bedroom. Annie. Or was it Milly?
She climbed over the debris and Lance—she felt like throwing up while doing it—and fumbled her way to the open bedroom door. She lifted the Glock as she neared it. There was just enough moonlight shining through the still-barricaded window that she could make out a figure on the floor, near the center of the room.
Danny. God, don’t let it be Danny.
As she stepped closer, the shape on the floor became clearer.
Don’t let it be Danny…
It wasn’t Danny. It was one of the ghouls, lying on its back. Where she expected to see blue eyes, there were instead two black holes. Except they were much bigger than eye holes were supposed to be. The head lay in a thick puddle of congealed blood, blackened against the moonlight. Danny’s cross-knife was buried in the creature’s forehead up to the guard.
“Danny!” Gaby called out.
“Over here,” a voice said.
There was a click! and Danny’s face was lit up by a flashlight beam. He grinned back at her through a layer of blood. A mixture of black and red, like some kind of Kabuki mask. It was impossible to tell where he was bleeding, or where he wasn’t.
“Can you move?” she asked.
“My right leg’s broken,” he said. “Too bad, cause that’s my dancing leg.”
“Annie?”
Danny moved the light away from him and across the room at Annie. She was still huddled in the corner with Milly, the two of them having folded up into a ball, arms encircling each other in mutual defense. Both were crying softly, unwilling to look up even when Danny’s flashlight illuminated them.
“The other girl…” Danny said.
Gaby looked back toward the stairs.
“Go,” Danny said.
“What about you?”
“I got this situation well in hand. The busted leg’s just to make it fairer.”
She managed a slight smile at him before stumbling her way back down the hallway toward the stairs, fighting the urge to throw up again as she stepped over Lance and the debris a second time. The fact that Lance’s face, turned to the side, was clearly visible in the pouring moonlight made her gag slightly.
She finally reached the stairs and hurried down.
“Will!” she called out. “Claire!”
Her voice echoed, but there was no reply. The only sound was the loud echo of her footsteps. She was halfway down when a silhouetted figure moved in the darkness below her. She stopped and lifted the Glock.
“Don’t shoot!” a small voice shouted.
Claire.
Gaby sighed and ran down the rest of the way as Claire stepped back. The thirteen-year-old was still clutching the FNH in both hands, and she didn’t look hurt or bleeding. Then again, it was so dark on the first floor that Gaby could barely see where she was stepping. She could tell where Claire was looking, though, and she turned in that direction.
Will.
He stood with his back to her, standing near a large hole in the wall of the house. The loud boom that she had heard earlier, she guessed. Some kind of explosion. Will was holding his M4A1 at his side, not in any threatening manner, and was looking out at the front yard.
“Will,” she said, a lot quieter than she had meant to.
Will glanced over his shoulder. “You okay?”
“Alive.”
“Danny?”
“Alive, too.”
He nodded and looked forward again.
Gaby turned to Claire. “You okay?”
Claire nodded. “Annie and Milly…?”
“They’re fine.”
“I saw Lance…”
“Yeah.” She looked back at Will, but said to the girl, “Stay here.”
She walked to Will and almost stepped on a body lying on the floor, hidden in the shadows. She looked down at a twisted black and pruned carcass. Or what was left of it. The head was missing. The monster wasn’t the only evidence of a fight down here. There were also two men in uniforms lying unmoving on the floor, both wearing gas masks. She didn’t have to ask Will what had happened to them.
“Will,” Gaby said. “What happened to the others? The black-eyed ones?”
“They’re still out there,” Will said. “There’s a lot of them.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Maybe thousands.”
“Why haven’t they…?”
She didn’t finish her question, because by then she was standing beside Will and looking out the hole in the wall. There was something else there in the middle of the jagged opening. It was a decapitated head impaled on a long, thin piece of broken wood. The head was hairless and the smooth skin gleamed in the moonlight. When she looked back at the dead creature behind her, she was able to put two and two together.
“Where…?” she whispered.
“Outside,” Will said. He wasn’t whispering, she realized.
She looked out the house and into the yard again. Will was right. The ghouls hadn’t gone anywhere. They were still outside.
All of them.
She could only see the first few hundred through the opening. The rest were hidden in the darkness beyond the power of even the moon to reveal. Not just in the yard, but around the house. The sides, the back, and well into the fields, too.
Her heart pounded at the sight of the creatures amassed outside. Their eyes, always creepy even when there was just one of them, were unfathomably terrifying with so many gathered at one spot. They looked like uncertain children, tentative and afraid. At first she thought they were looking at Will, but she was mistaken. They were staring at the head he had placed in the middle of the hole in the wall, which looked like the crooked mouth of a cave opening.
There was, she knew with great certainty, absolutely nothing to stop the thousands of undead things out there from coming into the house at any moment. Even silver bullets would only kill so many before the rest overwhelmed them in an unstoppable tidal wave of black death. And then what? They could head up the stairs, but against that many, they would never survive the night. She didn’t have to look down at her watch to know that they had hours—hours—to go before sunrise.
But the creatures weren’t attacking. They stayed where they were, swaying slightly against each other, a mass of squirming black flesh, almost indistinguishable against the night. There was something odd about the way they looked at the head, with a mixture of fear and awe and something she hadn’t really seen from them before.
It was indecision. They didn’t know what to do.
“Will,” Gaby whispered. “How did you know it would work?”
“I didn’t,” Will said. “But the blue-eyed ones control them. I just didn’t know to what extent.” He paused, then, “There were two more…”
“They’re upstairs. Dead.”
“Good.�
� Will pulled out his cross-knife and handed it to her, the silver gleaming brilliantly against a stray stream of moonlight. “Bring them down here. Just the heads.”
*
It was stickier than she had expected, and the smell made her want to retch every few seconds. She was no stranger to blood these days, but this wasn’t really blood. At least, not anymore. It was like washing her hands in tar, and she wondered if she would ever be able to clean them off—really, really clean them off—after tonight.
Cutting the heads hadn’t been easy with one hand. Her left was still effectively useless (though she didn’t tell Will that), but she found that pressing down on the creatures’ chests with one knee and slicing with her right hand was good enough. It took a lot of work, but thank God it hadn’t been as difficult to saw through bone as she had anticipated.
The black blood dripped from her fingers as she stood next to Claire and watched Will prop up the two heads on two separate objects sticking up from the floor. With the first makeshift spike, Will had broken a hole in the floorboards with the heel of his boot, then rammed the piece of wood into the dirt ground and set the head on top. He did a similar thing now with the two new heads she had brought down, using a lamp for one, shoving the exposed neck into the spot where the lightbulb was supposed to go, then setting it down on the ground. He used a rifle he had picked up from the floor for the other one.
If she thought the sight of the three decapitated heads side by side was disturbing, she felt better at how uncomfortable, how frightened the black-eyed ghouls looked outside where they continued to amass in the hundreds and thousands.
Claire stood next to her, both of them keeping a safe distance behind Will. He hadn’t moved, so they hadn’t, either. She wasn’t sure how long they stood on the first floor, in the darkness, waiting for something to happen.
But the ghouls never came in. They remained outside for the rest of the night and through the early morning hours. As far as she could tell, they barely moved at all and continued to huddle against one another, shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, peering in at the three severed heads, as if transfixed.
Around midnight, Will ordered her and Claire upstairs.
Annie was asleep in the corner, on the floor, with Milly snoring in her lap. Danny had (somehow) stood up and was peering out the window through the slots. He was using his rifle as a crutch and had wrapped pieces of lumber around his broken right leg with duct tape. He drank water and kept in constant contact with Will downstairs through their radios. Like Will and her, he had lost his earbuds during the chaos, but both of them had managed to keep their radios in one piece.
